Two key newspapers endorse McCain

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain of Arizona picked up the endorsements of two newspaper editorial boards Saturday -- those of the Des Moines Register and the Boston Globe.

On the Democratic side, the Register endorsed New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and the Globe backed Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

The Register, weighing in ahead of Iowa’s Jan. 3 presidential caucuses, said that Obama “inspired our imaginations. But it was Clinton who inspired our confidence.”

The newspaper found that Clinton and McCain topped their respective fields in competence and readiness to lead.

McCain, an opponent of crop subsidies important to Iowa, has not mounted a serious challenge in the state, but the editorial board cited his honesty and knowledge of national security and foreign policy issues.

The editorial board of the Globe, closely watched in the New Hampshire campaign, said that Obama fulfilled America’s need for “a president with an intuitive sense of the wider world,” and said McCain had “done more than his share to transcend partisanship and promote an honest discussion of the problems facing the United States.”

It said Obama’s diverse life experience helped him develop a unique perspective of the world, which it said was needed because the “most sobering challenges that face this country -- terrorism, climate change, disease pandemics -- are global.”